In terms of writing more club tracks, writing more electronically influenced - I feel like it was all electronically influenced, but now that influence has come to me in a different way.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've had so many different influences musically, even from people who aren't even musicians. If you're inspired by someone and you document it musically, then they are your influence.
I think that technology has both introduced new sounds but also allowed an increasingly painterly approach to recording music as you can now paint over what you've done and more and more refine an existing performance.
The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.
I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.
The industrial thing came about mainly through giving up trying to write pop songs in the early '90s. I don't think I was ever very good at pop music and as soon as I stopped trying, and started to write more the things I loved, it became much heavier and more aggressive.
I know that the writers I read and admire all have an influence on my work, but trying to determine to what degree any particular piece of input changes the way I think about writing seems counterproductive.
The older ideas are rendering more and more bland music.
I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.
When I sit behind that electronic drum, it dominates me; there is no innovation in composing music like that.
The more melodies and chord changes, the less good it is for the clubs, but the better it is for radio, because it makes it really emotional.